Every time I wrote the date today, Mom, I thought of you and felt a smile that tasted like warmed honey move across my face. It was a century and two years ago, probably on a day as lovely as this one, that you were born, gifting the world with a strength and grace all your own. Now, as I note this anniversary, my heart swells with gratitude and love for you. How I feel your arms surrounding me! How I know, more deeply with every passing day, how truly beautiful you were! How indebted and grateful I am for all the gifts you so generously gave to me, and to all whose lives you touched with you gentleness and rare courage. Happy Birthday, Marion May. I love you, and always will.
I’ve noticed that we all seem to be a bit tense these days. That’s a shame. We miss a lot when we’re all tight, and life is such a big and fascinating show. So I thought I’d share with you two of my favorite ways to release stress, and one for getting more out of whatever is going on. Their effects are temporary, meant to give you a little break and a broadened perspective.
The first one is good for emergency use as well as providing a quick mental refresh any ol’ time. The second one is an easy little exercise that’s almost as good as a nap.
1. Renewed Composure
Take a deep breath. A deep one! When your lungs are full, close your eyes. Breath out gently, slowly, as you whisper to yourself
Relax . . . Let my muscles relax; let them soften. Let me feel the flow of my breath. (Breathe in whenever you want to.) Let me straighten my posture and open my eyes.
Note the increase in your composure, and carry on.
Once the part about relaxing your muscles, feeling your breath, and straightening up becomes automatic, you can just say “Relax, 1, 2, 3” if you like.
Repeat as needed/desired.
2. The Ragdoll
Bend forward from the waist (just as far as is comfy) dangling your arms and head toward the floor. Imagine you’re a soft, worn rag doll and let your arms gently swing. When you want, s-l-o-w-l-y stand up, visualizing or feeling how you’re stacking your vertebrae one atop the other until you’re standing straight and tall. (Sometimes I like to do #1 right after this one.)
Enjoying the Show
This is a trick I discovered a few years back when co-workers often strolled into my office to dump their momentary frustrations and complaints. One of them particularly irritated me. She was nice enough and I liked her, but she was one heck of a chatterer with a thin, high-pitched voice, going on breathlessly while her hands flew through the air, her long, glossy fingernails flashing in the fluorescent light. But she needed a listener, and I got the role.
One day, while she was jabbering away, I asked myself how else I could see her so I could pay attention better. All of a sudden she transformed into a cartoon, like from “The Simpsons” maybe. The room itself looked like a cartoon in my mind. It was all I could do not to laugh. But it brightened my attitude and I found I could listen to her as if I were watching a movie,
I still use that technique to this day. I pretend I’m watching a sit-com or a movie, captivated by what everyone (including me) is saying and doing. I study the other characters’ faces and expressions and empathize with their stories, whether of suffering or joy. I let myself appreciate the drama of the situation, its tragedy, its comedy, its ordinariness, its beauty. Seeing it that way, I’m a step removed from it and get a wider view.
I don’t know if that will work for you. You’ll have to try it. Imagine you’re watching life on a really big screen, with the finest sound and lighting. See what happens. It’s all an experiment you know.
Make yourself a bag of popcorn. Then relax, and enjoy the show.
We little humans get our ideas, make our plans, and then say— when unseen variables come into play sending things askew— “The devil is in the details.”
Then there’s the cosmos, with its vast panorama of nebulae and star-spangled galaxies, one of which we live in, on a tiny speck circling one of its thousands of stars, where life thrives—imagine that!—and where beauty finds its way down to the tiniest of details, and everything sings the perfection of the omnipresent Yes.
Beneath it all, beneath her exuberance and delicious abandon, beneath her inexhaustible range of hues, her burgeoning greens, her endless moods and forms, what I love most about May is the tender sweetness of her endless, bountiful gifts.
Regardless of the world’s confusion, its violence and evil and pain, on this clear May morning lilacs blossom and swallowtails, newly emerged from their dark cocoons, flit in dizzy joy to sip the nectar.
Here is your reassurance, dear child. Here is proof of life’s renewal. Here is proof of grace.
It was yesterday, late in the afternoon. All day, every fifteen-twenty minutes, the mother had flown in to feed them. They chirped loud chirps: Me first! No! Me! Me next! Don’t forget me! And then they napped, transforming their meals into feather and muscle.
Just the day before, I caught one of them standing on a twig at the nest’s edge, between naps, bold and fearless as could be. Today, I didn’t get a chance to see them until afternoon. With camera in hand I walked softly through light rain. They were silent. Must be napping.
But no! They were gone! I just stood there in the rain, staring, waiting for my eyes to convince me of what was plainly the fact. The nest was empty. They were gone. So, the chapter closes; the stories go on. I’ll remember the one about baby robins.
Oh, fragrant little beauty, so precious and dear, your tiny bells whisper of our grandmothers’ gardens and of May bouquets in miniature vases filling our rooms with your sweet perfume.
Sweetheart of the Mother herself, you are all that is pure and pleasing, all that is tenderness and joy. Every spring may you ring your sweet bells until there are springs no more.
It doesn’t matter that you grow in a tangle of weeds or that you’re hidden in some corner where few ever pass. You’re still exactly where you were destined to be, where you were meant to unfurl your colors, where you were needed to sing your song.
The sunbeams will still find you, the stars will light your nights. Soft rains will come to quench your thirst and refresh you. And when you least expect them, friends will appear who see your strength and beauty.
Through your petals and leaves and stems, life extends its blessings to the world. So blossom and dance, little child of the Yes, and hear the wind whisper how you matter and are precisely where you are needed to be.
Every day comes with its own gifts, of course. But some, I’ve found, come wrapped in disguise, making you hunt for the prize. Sometimes you can go for months, even years, before you discover what the gift was.
But some days unfold with unblemished perfection that sings through the hours from dawn into night, every one of them spilling over with beauty. And when they close, they float into your heart, just to remind you that perfection is possible, and that you lived in its midst one day in spring.
Oh, Great Yes, whose promptings led these little ones to chirp this morning from their safe, if crowded, nest, singing their notes into the huge, unknown world, please protect them. Keep them safe from prowling beasts and teach them how to shelter from the rains. Help them, with their just-opened eyes, to see that the world is a welcoming place, and strengthen them with each passing hour until they can spread their wings and fly. Comfort their parents, who even now, are sending anxious cries from nearby branches, and help them bring juicy worms until the babies learn to find them on their own. One more thing. Accept my thanks for letting me watch this miracle unfold and for placing these almost-smiling fledglings at my door. In the name of Love, which flows unendingly from Your heart, Thank You! And Amen.
Early Morning, May 5, 202205-11-22 Before I Ever-so-Lightly Touched a Branch05-11-22 After05-13-22 Morning Snooze05-13-22 After Lunch05-14-22 Morning of their 10th Day
